Filming and Editing: Recurrence Final Film

Evaluation: Audience Feedback

Evaluation: Progression From Preliminary Task

Evaluation: 7 Questions

Evaluation: Shot, Sound, Mise-en-scene and Editing

When filming Recurrence originally we had made the mistake of not seeing the location first hand, we had only seen pictures of certain areas of the house, yet when we arrived and looked closely at the location we realized that we could increase our shot variety, for example the high angle shot that we used to represent the isolation of Lara in the house would not of been possible without the grand staircase that was in the house.

Also when filming the first version of Recurrence the storyline was somewhat different to the final storyline. By having Lara running away we created the montage of shots of her walking down the driveway, which added value and variety to the film. In particular the close up where Lara walks towards the camera created a false sense of security as typically this  is what would occur when a troubled teenager was running away from her troubles yet she is in fact running towards her troubles.

The two locations that we filmed in greatly aided us in showing connections between the past and present. For two reasons in particular; the first the age of the house in which was shown as Lara’s Dads house bring is of an older architectural style adding age to the opening as well as working well with the storyline. The second is the contrast between the modern house that is presented as Lara’s mum’s house which and the older building of Lara’s dads suggesting that Lara instead of going to her future is crossing over to her past.

Also a huge part of the film is the symbol of the candle, a candle normally represents positive things such as romance or peace and in many religions is a sacred symbol. We use the candle in a similar sense where we have the candle lit at the start of the film symbolizing hope and peace however the candle being blown out creates this idea that all hope is soon to be lost and that there is no chance of stopping it as the idea of the candle is to represent in a simplistic way that everything is set in stone and that the past will always repeat itself.

The Soundtrack of the film originally was going to be Requiem by Mozart however we believed that this music overshadowed the content of the film. We then discovered “Peaceful Sleepers” a charity single released by a local band Amy’s Ghost and after trying it out with our footage as we believed that the genre of the music work greatly with the genre of the film,  we obtained permission from the band and added it to the final film.

During our editing we spent time looking at the different forms of transitions and practiced placing them at different aspects of unwanted footage and thereby gathering an understanding of what transitions and edits worked best with in our film.  Final cut pro was a very effective piece of software that allowed us not only to edit the film using a wide range of tools and techniques but to also export a film of extremely high visual quality.

Filming and Editing: The Editing of Recurrence

During the making of the film, we experimented using final cut pro. We used the original footage of Recurrence which we had already decided was not what we were going to use as the final opening, and so instead uploaded it as a test piece to see what edits would look most effective before we began to edit the actual footage. Due to the fact that we had only used final cut pro in the preliminary task our understanding and hands on practice with the software was not hugely expert. And so by testing our skills on the previous footage we had a real working knowledge of the technology that aided our editing of the final opening of Recurrence. Final cut pro is of professional quality and is what many film makers use when editing their films. The edits do defer from the original storyboard yet that was due to trial and error.
In terms of importing the footage we had little issues and when lining up the shots the main issue was making the parts of the film that lacked continuity link which is where using additive dissolves etc really adds to the value of the film. The main issue we encountered was placing the soundtrack in to the film, the soundtrack was not recognised as an audio file and therefore we had to record the soundtrack on to an unknown MP3 and that was successful we were concerned that the quality of the soundtrack would suffer from this however it was recorded using a very high standard of software and worked well with in the film as we had originally set out to do.
Overall we believe that the editing of Recurrence worked well with in the film and by preparing before hand we were able to work successfully, and benefit from the software itself.

Filming and Editing: Refilming

The re-film was successful, we were far stricter to the storyboard and script which allowed us not only to capture more effective and powerful footage but also allowed us to use our time more effectively as well as efficiently. We have added a few extra shots as we believed them to increase the value of our film.
The weather and lighting was well used and really added to the impact that the shot has on the audience. The two locations that we shot at were to a very high standard as the house that is used at the start and end of the opening adds age and history to the film creating the relevant link to history repeating itself by using a house that was built in the Victorian era. Where as the house where Lara and her mother argue is more modern creating the sense that time is moving backwards rather than forwards. Overall it was a very successful day of filming. 

Filming and Editing: Sound track Peaceful Sleepers

We have confirmed with the band Amy's Ghost that we have permission to use the single "Peaceful Sleepers" as the soundtrack for our film Recurrence. The soundtrack with appear in the opening two minutes of the film. We chose this particular song as we believe that is corresponds best with the content of the opening as well as the film.

Research and Planning: Finalized changed storyboard